Who Are We Trying to Help? Building Marketing Software With the Account Holder in Mind

I was in an internal meeting the other day — product roadmap stuff, thinking about what problems and pains we should be solving — and it really got me thinking about the soul of what we do here at Pulsate.

Now, don’t get me wrong, we are obsessed with making life easier for the incredible credit union and bank marketing teams we serve. Our whole goal is to build the most intuitive, feature-rich platform you could ever ask for. We focus on segmentation capabilities that would make a statistician weep with joy, cross-channel orchestration that hums like a symphony, and analytics deep enough to scuba dive in. We build Pulsate for you to use. We want to be the tool that lets you execute campaigns that create ROI faster than you can say, “click-through rate.”

But during this meeting, as we were thinking about who we serve (and their problems), I had one of those “wait a minute” moments. We realized that while we’re building the car for the driver (the Marketer, in most cases), the real journey is all about the passenger (that’s your consumer).

Who’s Really In the Driver’s Seat?

As we talked, we came up with four core personas impacted by what we do. It was a fascinating look at how different people measure success within the same organization.

Here’s the quick-and-dirty summary; maybe you’ll see yourself in here:

• The CEO: They’re looking at the 30,000-foot view — organizational success, financial soundness, and the big-picture KPIs. They love it when consumer loyalty translates to higher lifetime value.
• The Marketer: This is our core user! They focus on successful campaign execution, open rates, and click-throughs. They need to demonstrate ROI, and they need tools that are fast and reliable. 
• The Digital Banker: Their motivation? A safe, secure, and compliant app with a pleasing UX and, critically, high app store ratings. They want to avoid a review that reads, “App is fine, but the push notifications are a nightmare.”
• The Member / Customer: And here’s the ultimate north star. They don’t care about your quarterly KPI report. They just want to manage their money effectively, achieve financial success (hello, down payment!), and maybe — just maybe — enjoy life a little more without financial stress.

The Consumer as Our True North

What if we shifted our focus just a little?

Instead of simply asking, “How can the marketer use this new feature?” what if we asked:

• How does this feature help a consumer save money or reduce debt?
• How does it simplify a complex financial decision, like refinancing a loan?
• How does it reduce friction on their path to a major life goal?

This isn’t just some feel-good, altruistic thought experiment. This is the most effective strategy for enduring success. And unless I miss my guess, these are the kinds of things you talk about in your internal meetings; less about solving your own problems, more about solving theirs.

Your mobile app isn’t just a place to check a balance anymore; it’s the consumer’s financial command center. When you use Pulsate to transform a generic push notification into a meaningful, proactive piece of guidance — a proactive prompt to check a CD rate, a reminder about an upcoming payment, or an insight into spending — you move from being “just a bank” to being a “financial coach.”

That kind of deeply helpful, personalized experience is what builds loyalty. And that loyalty? That’s what ultimately drives higher lifetime value and true business success for your financial institution, which makes the CEO happy, gives the Digital Banker great app ratings, and gives the Marketing Manager campaign metrics that sing. It’s a win-win-win-win!

The goal for Pulsate, and hopefully, for all of us, is to make your mobile app the best possible vehicle for your account holder’s path to financial success. Everything else flows from that.

Let’s keep the consumer at the center, because when they succeed, we all do.

– Sarah Martin, CEO, Pulsate

Turn your mobile app into your account holders’ financial command center by enabling proactive, personalized messaging with Pulsate.

Download “From Transaction to Relationship: The Guide to Full-Service Mobile Banking.”